Prepare to be scanned: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to follow in Britain's footsteps and roll out a pricey deployment of 450 scanners to U.S. airports despite health, efficiency, and privacy concerns. (Source: Daily Mail UK)

Some experts say the plan is to give the perception of security, even if it doesn't make airports much safer. (Source: Textuality.org)

Despite
those problems, the DHS appears to believe that the perception of
security is too important to wait for further study. It is
instead beginning
a mass deployment, rolling out new scanners in 11 cities
including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

The
advanced imaging technology (AIT) units were installed at the Boston
Logan International airport on Friday and will be installed at
Chicago O'Hare International in the next week – all installations
will be completed by the summer's end.

Currently,
forty AIT units are in limited use at 19 U.S. airports. The new
units will mark the first mass deployment of the technology to the
U.S. airports. More units are expected to be deployed later
this year.

The
scanners will come at a relatively high expense to taxpayers. They
are funded by a $1B USD appropriation from the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The spending plan -- crafted by
Congress, President
Obama, and the Department of Homeland Security -- calls for $700
million in new screening for checked baggage and $300 million in
checkpoint explosives-detection technologies.

The
nine other airports receiving scanners will be: Fort
Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FFL), Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky International (CVG), Mineta San Jos International (SJC), Los
Angeles International (LAX), Port Columbus International (CMH),
Oakland International (OAK), San Diego International (SAN), Kansas
City International (MCI), and Charlotte Douglas International (CLT).
Of the airports, only LAX previously had full-body scanners.

The
DHS is defending its pricey plan, arguing that there's no privacy
risk. It says that images of passengers unclothed won't be
stored, despite the recent revelation that the scanners had the built
in capability to do so. They also admit that the scanners are
only efficient at detecting metal objects, but say that could be very
helpful in detecting knives or metal-based guns.

They
also claim there's no health risk with the non-ionizing radio
frequency energy in the millimeter wave spectrum used by the scanners
to generate their images. They say the system's energy is
100,000 times less than a cell phone transmission. (Recent
studies, however, have suggested that DNA damage may certainly be
possible).

For
better or worse, though, the 450 new scanner units will soon be a
common sight in the 11 airports on the mass deployment's front. The
U.S. appears to be marching in Britain's footsteps, moving towards a
"no scan, no fly" policy.

"What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." -- Michael Dell, after being asked what to do with Apple Computer in 1997